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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556753">Kill me (tell the stars you've won)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishyflame/pseuds/fishyflame'>fishyflame</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Kill me, and tell the stars you won. [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dead Toby Smith | Tubbo, Dream Team SMP - Freeform, Gen, How Do I Tag, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Letters, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Pain, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Wakes &amp; Funerals, only the first four appear, the rest are implied - Freeform, 🦀Tubbo's gone🦀</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:08:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556753</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishyflame/pseuds/fishyflame</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tubbo dies to Dream, because Punz and the others don't arrive quick enough. Dream is still imprisoned, but Tubbo is dead. The server, especially Tommy, mourns. </p><p>-<br/>I suck at summaries, but I swear the actual story is better than this</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cara | CaptainPuffy &amp; Sam | Awesamdude, Cara | CaptainPuffy &amp; TommyInnit, Sam | Awesamdude &amp; TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo &amp; TommyInnit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Kill me, and tell the stars you won. [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171478</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>161</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Kill me (tell the stars you've won)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Well, this is my second work on AO3 ever, and I still haven't gotten used to the tags or any of it. I'm trying.<br/>Anyway, I wrote this across three hours, so sorry if it sounds rushed. I got interrupted when I wrote the ending, so it's really rushed.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>‘We won.’ But there was no happiness in his voice. There couldn’t be anymore. Sure they won the discs back. But was it worth it? Was everything they’d done to get there worth it? How much had they lost, how much had they sacrificed to reach this point. Sure Dream was locked up, but they’d lost more than they’d gained surely. They’d lost L’Manberg, they’d lost Wilbur… Tommy had lost Tubbo. ‘God fucking dammit!’ Tommy yelled, although there was no one around to hear it, ‘Why… Why did it have to be like this.’ Tubbo was right. Tubbo was always right. The discs caused more harm than good. The discs don’t matter. They never mattered, because they were stupid little inanimate pieces of plastic. They were stupid and they weren’t people, they didn’t have feelings, it wasn’t worth going to this extent for them. Tommy had lost everything for some stupid pieces of plastic. First it was two of his lives, then it was his home, then finally it was his best friend. </p><p> </p><p>Why was the universe so cruel? Why had they reached this point? The discs were worthless pieces of plastic; sure, they had history, but they weren’t worth a country, they weren’t worth a life.  Why did it take so long for Tommy to see that? Why did it take losing his best friend for him to see that? </p><p> </p><p>Tommy hadn’t moved since… the funeral? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t care to, anymore. Sometimes he thought that Ghostbur was lucky, just simply forgetting everything that was bad that had happened, living safely inside a happy bubble, shielded from the horrors of the outside world like a child. But he hadn’t seen Ghostbur since Doomsday. Where <strike>his fucking brother</strike> Technoblade, <strike>dad</strike> Phil and Dream destroyed his ‘home’. No that wasn’t right. It wasn’t his home, not anymore. It hadn’t been home since the election. Since he lost to Schlatt and they were cast out into the wilderness, into the ravine they called Pogtopia. That hadn’t been home either. Home was with Wilbur and Tubbo and Niki and Fundy and Jack (and Eret for a bit, at least until the betrayal), in the brief period of peace and happiness after they gained independence. Sure they lost a lot during that war, but they were happy.</p><p> </p><p>The funeral had been a sombre but simple affair. Tommy hadn’t cried. He refused to. He didn’t want to be weak. Tubbo had always seen him as strong, a ‘big man’. (That wasn’t true. They were best friends and they’d seen every possible side of each other.) Sure, his best friend was gone, gone forever, but he didn’t process this until later. He was avoiding thinking about it. When Puffy had seen him still sitting by the grave, still stubbornly unmoving, still not crying, she’d told him about how repressing his feelings would only hurt him more. He didn’t care. He told her as much, using some much more colourful language.</p><p>Everyone had attended the funeral, because everyone cared so much for Tubbo (Tommy knew how different it would’ve been if it was him who died instead). He even saw Techno and Phil standing awkwardly at the back, although it seemed neither of them shed tears. It was more respectable than Schlatt’s funeral, because did anyone really respect Schlatt? Bad started the ceremony, and Eret, Fundy, Quackity and Jack carried the coffin. It was small. Painfully small. Niki gasped when she saw it, and buried her face into Captain Puffy’s shoulder. Tommy had stared, unmoving in the front row, next to Sam. Sam was the only one who seemed to care, although Tommy knew it was probably only because he had an ulterior motive (Tommy had hoped that Sam actually cared, but he knew deep down that he didn’t.). Bad had started a speech, a eulogy to Tubbo and then offered the podium to anyone else who wished to give a speech. Quackity went up, then Niki, who broke down halfway through her speech and couldn’t finish, then Eret. They all paid homage to the Tubbo they saw, the president of a crumbling nation, the friend that wouldn’t give up on anything, the kid they worked by during the first war. Some people tensed at the mention of the Independence War, because Eret’s betrayal was common knowledge. But Tommy didn’t care. Because none of these were accurate. Accurate to the Tubbo that Tommy knew, the one who had broken down in his arms when they were betrayed by Eret after a painful respawn; the one who had looked to him with terror in his eyes during Schlatt’s inauguration that couldn’t have gone worse; the one who had frantically messaged him and Wilbur during the Red Festival turned execution; the one who had sobbed in his arms when they were reunited in Pogtopia after yet another excruciating respawn. The Tubbo who had tears in his eyes when he gave his speech after becoming president; the one who had so much fucking pain and trauma; the fucking child that Tubbo used to be before they were both thrust into a world with Wars and Independence and Presidents and Exile. </p><p> </p><p>Tommy wishes he had said something at the funeral. Because now all he had to talk to was a cold gravestone, with a simple message ingrained into the rock: </p><p><em> ‘A friend, a son, a president. </em> <b> <em>A child.</em> </b></p><p>
  <em> Tubbo Underscore </em>
</p><p>
  <em> 23/12/03 - 20/01/21’ </em>
</p><p>It wasn’t inaccurate, but Tommy still hated the inscription. It made everything permanent. It made everything true, made everything real. Tubbo was gone and he was the only one hung up on it. Sure, Tubbo is was his best friend, but he’d been close with others too. They were coping. He’d seen Niki and Jack pass by, looking sadly over to him and the grave stone. They were getting on with their lives. He’d seen Eret stop by and look from a distance at the grave, pity in his eyes. Tommy didn’t need, didn’t deserve their fucking pity. He was strong, he was coping, <b>he was fine</b> <b> <em>.</em> </b></p><p> </p><p>Tommy wasn’t fine. It had been three days since the funeral. Three days where he just sat there, talking aimlessly to the grave of his best friend. Tommy wasn’t coping. He had broken down sobbing six times, in the dead of night and no one heard him <strike>(Dream didn’t like it when he cried).</strike> He hadn’t eaten since the day before the confrontation. But he’d lived without food for longer in exile. He wasn’t strong. Tommy was breaking apart, piece by fucking piece every minute. And no one deigned to care. He was a kid sure, but they all saw him as the source of all of their problems. If he hadn’t helped Wilbur with the drug business, then L’Manberg wouldn’t have existed. And if L’Manberg didn’t exist, there’d be no Independence War, no betrayal, no election, no Schlatt, no exile, no Pogtopia, the Blade wouldn’t be in their realm, no execution, the country wouldn’t’ve been blown up because there was no country to blow up. Tubbo wouldn’t have become president, Tubbo wouldn’t have had to exile Tommy, Dream wouldn’t have manipulated him, Tommy wouldn’t have fled to Techno and Techno wouldn’t have wanted to destroy L’Manberg. Doomsday would never have happened, they wouldn’t have confronted Dream for the discs, because they’d never be in his possession after the duel, because there was no duel, no need for independence. It was crazy how much danger and destruction and chaos could be traced back to a sixteen year old boy. </p><p> </p><p>10 days had passed since the funeral, and Tommy had disappeared. Fundy hadn’t seen him when he passed the grave site on his daily walk. This was obviously concerning, because for the last ten days, Tommy had been seen rambling to the grave. Fundy had immediately gone to Puffy, one of the few adults Tommy seemed to trust. She had been in the flower shop with Niki, just casually conversing when Fundy rushed in, shaking. ‘Tommy’s missing.’ That was all she heard and all she needed to know. With a quick message to Sam to meet her at the grave site on her communicator. She hurried there, hoping that nothing was wrong, that maybe Fundy was lying. </p><p> </p><p>Sam was there when she arrived. He held a small crumpled envelope in his hands. Puffy rushed towards him. ‘Sam!’ she called, ‘What’s that?’ gesturing to the envelope. </p><p>‘I… I don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet. But… I have a theory.’ Sam said gravely. Puffy knew where he was going with this.</p><p>‘“To whom it may concern.”’ She read. It was likely what they thought it was, ‘We should open it.’</p><p>‘Okay,’ Sam opened the envelope and began to read, ‘“To whom it may concern. Or whoever can care enough to read it.”’ Puffy gasped and Sam paused. ‘This is what we thought it was then.’</p><p>‘“I guess, if you’re reading this, I’m not by the grave anymore. I left. There’s nothing for me here. Don’t try and find me. I don’t want to be found. I’ll hopefully survive, but you’ll see on your comms if I don’t. You must be thinking ‘good riddance’ right? Because I’m the source of all the problems. If I hadn’t invited Wilbur to join me here, there would’ve been no L’Manberg and none of the shit that came with that. I wouldn’t have lost the discs to Dream for ‘independence’, though that did a fat load of good, and then…”’ Puffy read, but there were tear marks on the paper here and it was hard to decipher, ‘“Tubbo wouldn’t be dead. Jesus Christ that hurt to write. But he’s dead, I need to accept that. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I caused all this shit for everyone and Tubbo… Tubbo paid the price. If I was better, if I had managed to beat Dream, if things were different. Maybe we would’ve seen my funeral. God knows I’ve avoided it so far. So, I’m sorry to every fucking person in this world who I’ve hurt.”’ Puffy gasped, and tightened her fist at her side. ‘“I wish things could’ve been different but they’re not. I guess I gotta deal with it right? So I’m leaving. Don’t come looking for me. I don’t want to be found. It’s better this way anyway. I can’t hurt anyone if I’m far away. Goodbye, if you care, TommyInnit.”’ </p><p>‘Oh.’ Sam said weakly. </p><p>‘He’s gone,’ Puffy said mournfully, ‘All this shit happened,’ She gestured to the land around them, the L’Manberg crater and Wilbur and Schlatt’s graves, ‘And now he left.’</p><p>‘We won’t go looking for him though?’ Sam asked, ‘He doesn’t want to be found.’</p><p>‘Of course. It’s the least we can do, after everything else.’ Puffy sighed. </p><p> </p><p>They held a ceremony marking Tommy’s absence. They told everyone (who’d come; there wasn’t as many as there had been for Tubbo) that Tommy needed to find a new life, away from this ‘shithole’ as he had put it. They told him not to go looking for him. He didn’t want to be found. They didn’t want to hurt him anymore. </p><p> </p><p>In the trees near where they were gathered, a tall figure crouched in the treeline. He smiled, one last time, at the people he was leaving, for respecting his wishes not to be found. And then he took off into the forest, leaving people he once called his friends far behind him. </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Considering making this into a series, so maybe stick around? Maybe leave kudos and comments, that'd be nice :)</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/fishyflame_">Twitter</a><br/><a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fishyflame">Tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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